


Six Dates

by avawtsn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Challenge Response, Explicit Sexual Content, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, M/M, POV John Watson, Post series 4, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 04:38:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10268417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avawtsn/pseuds/avawtsn
Summary: A rather accidental 5+1 written for the prompt "is this a date?" Hint: it is.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the come-at-once 24 hour porn challenge. Guess what! I spent most of the 24 hours writing, just. Not. Porn. Which is what you see here. My apologies for everything. This was unbetaed af.
> 
> And the reason why I split it up into two chapters is because chapter 1 encompasses near-dates #1-5 and chapter 2 is your +1 porny one. I _think_ chapter 2 is probably readable as a standalone, although 1 is a big angsty repression party if you stop there.

(01)

John and Rosie moved in on a Friday. For John, of course, it was a prodigal return of sorts, a heavy unsung homecoming that drudged up feelings he didn’t want to examine too closely. For Rosie, it was the first--no, second, major upheaval in her young life, but the first one that John was fully responsible for. It bothered John, of course it did, all of it, everything. But he pushed it down and told himself that he needed the help, the proximity to babysitters and godparents and public transport to his new ghost-free job. None of it was untrue, after all.

Apart from Rosie playing the role of squirming hot potato, all two stone of her being endlessly transferred between John, Sherlock, and poor Mrs. Hudson all afternoon, the move went remarkably like the first time all those years ago. Owing to John moving very little from the old flat, in the end. It was mostly Rosie’s things packed in Mary’s luggage, and his clothes, which all still fit in a large army duffel. He left Mary’s sunny old flat with its too-large rooms, and moved his daughter into dark and dusty 221B, both of them crammed into his old bedroom upstairs. It wasn’t the most tenable of long-term living solutions, but he didn’t have the energy to deal with long-term. He had a finite amount of will to deal with anything at all beyond the current work week and Rosie’s daily supply of nappies, and anyway, he needed the help. That much, even his new therapist had agreed, was true.

Rosie and Mrs. Hudson seemed to run out of patience with the day at around the same time. By the time daylight was fading to burnt orange outside, Rosie was emphatically done with her empty bottle, and she started yawning and fussing into the collar of John’s shirt, her eyelids drooping in that guileless way of tired children. Mrs. Hudson, having had a full day’s workout, made her excuses to get an early start on her evening routine downstairs. And then they were alone.

“You rest,” Sherlock said, putting down his cuppa and scooping up Rosie from John’s arms. “I’ll put her to bed upstairs. Maybe we’ll celebrate your return to Baker Street when I return?”

“You sure you want to put her to bed? Sherlock?” John said, but Sherlock was already headed for the stairs with Rosie in automatic adjustment against his shoulder. He paused at the door to the landing, a safe distance away, and gave a polite little smile, as if he weren’t doing John a favour right this moment. As if Sherlock hadn’t slipped right into their John-and-Rosie life and known just what both of them needed.

In the doorway, Rosie had one loose fist raised, rubbing at her eye as she snuffled into Sherlock’s neck, and Sherlock’s hand spanned the whole of her back, rubbing it idly, soothing. John’s heart gave a little kick at the sight; it felt like the last spasm of muscle he was capable of for the day.

“Of course,” Sherlock said, breaking the spell.

They disappeared upstairs, and John watched the empty space where they had stood until the sky outside darkened completely, blanketing the sitting room in dim, murky shadows. His eyes drifted closed, ears unconsciously straining to listen to Sherlock’s formless rumblings drifting down from the room above--a bedtime story--and exhaustion took him before he got to the end of the book.

-

John woke to the unmistakable smell of curry and the homey sound of a fire. He started to move, stretching away some of his stiffness, but he was so pleasantly _warm_ and loathe to crack open his eyes--he kicked off the blanket that had been laid on top of him and watched Sherlock come into view, takeaway containers in hand.

“Ah, you’re awake.”

John swung his legs down off the couch and rubbed his eyes, taking in the piled up containers on the coffee table. “You got dinner. How long was I out?”

“Not that long,” Sherlock said noncommittally. “Long enough for me to get Rosie to sleep and to get takeaway. Dishoom.”

“God, I’m bloody starving,” John said as the realisation struck him. He was salivating at what he suspected to be mattar paneer, if he knew Sherlock’s ordering habits. Which of course he did, because this was John’s favourite Indian in London. John hummed happily, weak with gratitude. “This was...this was really nice, Sherlock, thank you. I couldn’t have asked for a better welcome home.”

A blush stole over Sherlock’s face, which crinkled up in a pleased little smile. “Yes, well. You know you’re more than welcome here, John.” He started scooping out biryani onto the two plates already set out before them. Settled down side by side on the sofa, they started in the food with all the ceremony of two famished bachelors.

“Almost forgot,” Sherlock said some long moments later, a little loud in the quiet they’d drifted into. Neither one of them had elected to switch on the telly for background noise. “Not much of a celebration without libations. There’s a choice of beverage, would you prefer a Kingfisher? There’s also a Chardonnay or maybe a Riesling hiding in the fridge somewhere.”

“Mm, you choose,” John said, swallowing a mouthful of sauced naan and tearing off another piece.

He chewed thoughtfully, watching Sherlock’s retreating back as he went to retrieve some stemmed glasses and root around in the fridge.

It was only later, in bed, as consciousness faded and his limbs grew heavy with exhaustion and the quiet stirrings of the violin wound their way upstairs, that he wondered when Sherlock had started keeping white wine in the flat.

(02)

The following few days passed in a blur. Molly dropped by midweek when it seemed like Lestrade needed Sherlock for a case, but Sherlock said it was a five at best and he wound up solving it from the flat before Rosie was done with her evening bottle.

“To be honest, this doesn’t feel any different from before you officially moved back in,” Molly commented, when Sherlock had faffed off to his room for an older map reference than he could find on his laptop.

“Lavatories,” he had muttered, leaving John and Molly on the sofa. Rosie was stood between Molly’s legs, carefully dumping block after block into Molly’s open bag between them.

“No, yeah, I suppose not,” John agreed. He’d spent enough post-case nights in the upstairs bedroom over the past few months, with Rosie in a crib they’d long installed in 221A downstairs. There were now more changes of clothing for the both of them though, and less guilt eating away at him whenever it came down to the hour or two before Rosie’s bedtime. Decision time as to whether to haul her all the way back home or just stay the night, yet again.

“He seems happy,” Molly continued, head gesturing back toward Sherlock’s bedroom.

John’s eyebrows lifted at that. “Sherlock?” He looked in the direction of Sherlock’s closed bedroom door, as if that was going to give him any insight into his _happiness_.

“He ordered two orders of dumplings,” Molly said by way of explanation, confusion crinkling her brow. Her eyes narrowed just slightly at John, which made him feel grateful that Rosie was fussing spectacularly that she’d run completely out of toys to dump into Molly’s purse.

“Okay, missy, time for you to go to bed and for Molly to excavate her bag, eh?” John scooped her up and heaved up off the couch. “Say goodnight to Molly,” he said, dipping her down to let Molly cuddle her.

“Moh!” Rosie said obediently, although she wore a familiar pout as she spouted the unexpected little syllable, and she turned away to bury her face in John’s neck, already yawning.

John and Molly exchanged a long, wordless look of surprise.

“Wow, I don’t--I don’t think she’s ever--” John started.

“No, no, she hasn’t.” Molly’s eyebrows looked as far up as his now, and then they broke out into matching grins, equal parts incredulous, happy, and shocked. He’d have to tell Sherlock after Rosie was down for the night.

“I--well. Stick around if you’d like, Molly, I’m sure Sherlock will be out in a minute. I’ll just--put her to bed before the crankiness goes nuclear.”

He left Molly on the sofa, his heart twisting with a shapeless regret that Sherlock wasn’t around for the moment.

-

When Friday rolled around, Sherlock arranged for Mrs. Hudson to take Rosie for the night, after making sure to tire her out at the children’s playground that afternoon, he told John. (“That’s the trick, tiring them out.”) In a way, John mused, Rosie was more used to spending the night in the cot downstairs than the one upstairs.

“I thought Angelo’s,” Sherlock said with uncharacteristic shyness. “Or, I could cook a pasta thing here, but since Rosie’s with Mrs. Hudson, I just thought…” He trailed off, faint pinkness heating his cheeks. He gestured vaguely at the kitchen, as if he was going to cook in _that_ getup.

“No, no, that sounds...great. Good,” John said. “Pasta would hit the spot, yeah. Let me just get my coat.”

It was just something he said to get moving. The coat proved unnecessary for the unseasonably warm weather, which even Sherlock seemed to dress for tonight. He left his Belstaff on the hook, and looked remarkably thin and vulnerable in a satiny grey shirt and pressed black trousers. The shirt had even lighter grey, pearlish buttons, which of course weren’t done up enough to hide a pale vee of skin that drew the eyes down from the column of his already damnably long neck. Even in the warm flickering candlelight of Angelo’s, he seemed cast in a monochromatic greyscale, picture perfect and smooth clean lines.

By comparison, John felt every bit the sweating, frumpy dad that he was.

“Sherlock! It’s good to see you, my friend,” Angelo greeted with his usual verve. “No daughter today?” He looked between Sherlock and John expectantly, as if Rosie would pop up out of John’s shooting jacket with a squeal.

“No, er, it’s past her bedtime,” John said. “Babysitter has her.”

“Ah, good, good, it’s important to get time alone, away from the _bambino_ ,” Angelo said, conjuring up visions in John’s mind of Angelo’s Italian mother with those words on her lips, or possibly a wife. Was Angelo married? John had never asked. “I’ll prepare you something myself tonight then, no menus, no menus. Something special. A bottle of wine for you, okay?” He took up the menus the hostess had given them and disappeared to the kitchen with a cartoonish wink.

John chuckled at Angelo’s departing form until he caught sight of Sherlock across the table, flushed pink and holding himself very very still. John could see the flush creeping down his neck. Those stupid unbuttoned buttons.

“You alright? Sherlock?”

“Yes, of--of course. I was just being--well. Scandalised by a couple behind you. No, don’t _look_.” Sherlock seemed to push the words out mechanically, but his shoulders visibly relaxed. Of course John desperately wanted to look now. “No, they’re leaving now, never mind,” Sherlock said in a single breath, eyes tracking away from John and then down at the tablecloth.

But then oven-fresh bread and olive oil arrived for the table, and John was entirely engrossed in overloading on carbs for the next hour to really think about the couple that he never caught a glimpse of.

(03)

The next Friday ended well into Saturday thanks to a moonlit chase right to the banks of the Thames. Thankfully, neither one of them fell in this time. He wouldn’t have liked to explain the stench to Mrs. Hudson again in the morning.

The adrenaline hadn’t worn off yet by the time they stumbled into the sitting room, making them clumsy as drunks and just as giggly. In the dark, John stepped on a toy of Rosie’s, which started a short burst of song, circus-loud in the stillness of the flat.

“Shhh! Shhh! Shut up!” John scolded, hopelessly drowned out by the cloying children’s song. “Children are _sleeping_!”

Sherlock’s shoulders shook with laughter that he kept nearly silent, which under the circumstances seemed wholly unnecessary as the song kept going cheerfully, _let’s sing a song about you!_ , spelling out Rosie’s name like a clap machine-accompanied spell. _R! O! S! I! E!_ John dissolved into laughter despite himself, groaning. Please, please let her not wake up.

“You--” Sherlock laughed breathlessly, trying to keep his voice low still. “You told my pal Violet to shut up.” He was wheezing in earnest, his face warm with genuine, childish glee. He wiped at his eyes and then unceremoniously collapsed onto the sofa, taking up the whole length of the thing quite attractively. Selfishly. The song at least had mercifully stopped after one bar of Rosie’s name.

“Oi,” John said indignantly, before claiming a spot on the sofa for himself in revenge--on Sherlock’s feet. “Budge over. Is that her name, Violet?”

“Some detective’s companion you are,” Sherlock huffed, grinning. “The dog’s name lights up on her collar when she sings.”

“I wasn’t _reading_ the damn flashing light,” John retorted. “I was too busy panicking.”

“Like a first-time criminal in the flashing lights of a police car,” Sherlock teased, sing-song. He chuckled at the thought.

“You got me,” John said, snorting. “Arrest me, take me away.”

Sherlock coughed abruptly, clearing his throat as he sat up on the sofa, one quick jerk of his body. “Nightcap?”

“Love one.”

Sherlock extricated his bony feet from underneath John and padded to the kitchen, leaving John temporarily alone with Violet the singing dog. He meant to ask Sherlock when he got around to programming the name song into the toy, but it simply slipped his mind.

(04)

Three weeks into being back full-time at Baker Street, John blearily started the week by getting all the way to the clinic doors before realising it was a bank holiday. And of course Sherlock didn’t keep track of that sort of thing, so he was of no help this morning. So John trudged back home, exasperated and annoyed at himself; the lack of rush hour bodies jammed onto the tube _really_ should have tipped him off.

His mood was lighter by the time he arrived home though. He unexpectedly had all day to spend with Sherlock and Rosie, which would be good even if they did nothing at all. And if he was going to have a child unapologetically cough in his face today, at least it’d be his own child.

He crept up the stairs, skipping the fifth tread that always creaked. Maybe he could get the drop on Sherlock for once. And if he were honest, he was curious to get a glimpse of what their day was like after he’d gone to work. It pulled up a shockingly blank slate when he tried to pull it up; he knew Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson shared duties about feeding and changing her, took her out to the park sometimes, but John wasn’t aware of any sort of schedule. No playdates or Gymboree or anything like that. At 10am on a Monday morning, what his own daughter was doing outside of his care drew up nothing but question marks.

“Da,” he could hear Sherlock saying through the cracked open front door. Was he speaking Russian? “Daddy. Come on now. You can try it with me. Dad-dy. Da-da, if you must.”

John’s breath froze in his lungs. Not Russian then.

“Alright, you were doing better with the nasal consonants then, let’s try that. Muh. Moll. Molly. You try.”

“Muh!” Rosie exclaimed, more squeal than anything. “Mull.”

“Good!” Sherlock was saying warmly. “That wasn’t bad. You need to work on your obstruents though. Da. Da. Your tongue goes behind your teeth. When you get teeth. More teeth. Oh, don’t look at me like that, I can’t make them come in any faster.”

And because John suspected, but he didn’t _know_ , he crept up to the front door of their flat and peered in, heart thumping wildly in his throat.

Sherlock and Rosie were, surprisingly, both in view from the landing. Sherlock was faced away from the door, sprawled out on one of the rugs, propped up on one elbow. Rosie sat up on the far side of him, eyes drawn to the mobile phone in his hand. He was flipping through pictures.

“Shuh-ock?” Rosie seemed to say, pointing tentatively at one of the pictures. Her face looked like it was screwed up in concentration.

“Yes,” he answered, and John could hear the frown in his tone. “That’s not what we’re working on here now, is it? Here, here’s one. Da. Dad. Daddy. Go on.”

Rosie was quiet, looking up at him with a pensive look on her face, and then she caught a glimpse of John in the crack of the door. Her eyes lit up unmistakably, and for the first time in Rosie’s life, that look sparked panic in John’s gut. Sherlock’s head whipped around and John could hear the noise of the phone’s display being put to sleep.

“John?”

John scrambled to straighten up from his low, careful crouch. Inside, he could hear Sherlock getting up off the floor.

“John, is that you?”

Clearing his throat, he walked up to the door and pushed it open before Sherlock got there. He’d just picked up Rosie off the ground. “Yeah, yeah, hey...it’s me,” John said, feeling stupid and obvious.

But it was Sherlock who was blushing, mouth hanging half-open. Rosie tried to put her fist in it, so he snapped it shut.

“Shoe-ock!” she squealed in his arms, entranced by their little game.

“She can say your name?” John said a bit numbly. “And Molly’s?”

Sherlock’s mouth softened with shock again. “I--well, no, not exactly, just linguistic approximations of similar nasal, sonorant, sibilance--you know, I expect half that she’s just free-associating anyway, infant synapses are known to fire randomly, or she’s simply moving spit around her mouth, or--or--”

“Shh’lock,” Rosie squealed, trying to steal a finger into Sherlock’s mouth on a stammered _or_ , and this time the _lock_ was crystal clear in a way it wasn’t before, not from John’s vantage in the landing.

“Oh my god, she talks. She knows your name,” John heard himself saying, not a little bit of awe in his tone.

Sherlock’s face did something complicated, something John couldn’t quite follow. Like John had voiced a shameful secret, and he was preparing himself for the fallout. But why _would_ there be fallout, when Rosie had been delayed in hitting her speech milestones up til now? Why would it be bad that she finally said a few words, and John could feel like she wasn’t neglecting her only daughter, failing her, leaving her too much with--

“Oh,” he said, in the moment he felt his face fall with realisation. Sherlock was teaching her to say daddy, because that’s a word she didn’t say.

Sherlock stood in the centre of their sitting room, John’s daughter on his hip and a desperate, wordless look on his face. Something nameless and gaping between them.

At that moment, Mrs. Hudson rattled up the stairs with a tray behind him, by the sounds of it, and no doubt found John in the doorway of the flat, frozen like a deer.

“Miss-un!” Rosie greeted her as she came in. Sherlock visibly cringed.

“Hullo, Rosie!” Mrs. Hudson said cheerfully. “Oh, John, are you back from work already? Oh no, of course not, today’s a bank holiday, isn’t it? I rather forgot.” She tsked at herself as John moved to the side to let her through. She unloaded a plate of biscuits, which Rosie reached for plaintively from Sherlock’s arms, and started loading up this morning’s cups onto her tray.

“It’s a lovely day out there, boys, if you’re up to leaving the flat today,” Mrs. Hudson prattled on, heedless. Something in the lilt of her voice transported John to the day he first visited 221B. _There’s another bedroom upstairs, if you’ll be needing two bedrooms_.

Here it was, years later, and Mrs. Turner’s married ones had moved out to the suburbs. Yet Sherlock and John remained, with a child now to boot.

John found himself nodding before the words formed. “Yeah, Sherlock, let’s--let’s you and me take Rosie out for the day, if you’re up for it.” Sherlock blinked, at once bewildered and shy. “If you’ve got nothing else on, that is.”

“No,” Sherlock said slowly, as if it were a trick. “I don’t.”

“Come on then. I’ll pack a bag for Rosie.”

-

The plan was to spend the morning at the London Zoo, as Sherlock estimated the crowds would be easier to handle than in the afternoon. But even Sherlock underestimated the holiday crowd in picture perfect weather. With Rosie strapped to him, Sherlock navigated the winding stairwell at the Camden Town station with about as much sniffing ferocity as John had ever seen him take on a suspect with. Rosie, of course, squealed like it was bumper cars, which it sort of was.

Somehow or another, some former client of Sherlock’s found them near the ticketing centre and insisted on hiring out a pushchair to them free of charge. Rosie had her midday nap in it, after a good couple hours of pressing herself flat against glass and fence enclosures. John told her all the common names of the animals and Sherlock tried to impress with telling her the scientific names, but given the amount he was playing on his phone and sneaking looks at the plaques, John could tell he was cheating. They squabbled over it only a little.

The afternoon was less intense as far as crowds went, but their stopover at Regent’s Park was still busy with families and couples. They staked out a bench to themselves, and made the mistake of giving Rosie a lolly.

“Alright, I didn’t think to bring _two_ changes of clothing,” John complained. “She looks like she’s committed a murder.” He frowned at her, which made her laugh maniacally. His daughter. “A very...fruity murder. Come on, we have to get her home.”

“And what sort of murders are _you_ chronicling, my dear Boswell?” Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “Given the location of the...mess, I’d say she’s closer to a fruit bat than a murderer.”

“Sherlock,” John said, although he was already chuckling.

“Alright, I’ll go fix it, hold on. Just wait here.”

“Fix it? Fix it how?” John called out, frowning, but Sherlock was already winking and whisking Rosie away.

John sighed.

It wasn’t more than a moment that a woman joined him, because John had the worst timing on the planet. Straight brown hair with seagreen eyes. Not a young thing like he used to chase; more middle aged, handsome, with spray of freckles a shade darker than the ones on Sherlock’s neck. She smiled brightly at him when he looked up.

“Lovely weather y'all are having today. I thought it was all fog and rain this side of the pond,” she laughed, American drawl on full display. He was pretty shit at American regional accents, but he was fairly sure she was...southern.

“No, not everyday,” John smiled, trying for politeness.

Sherlock caught up with them with Rosie in tow. She was, as Sherlock promised, fixed--in that she was wearing a London Zoo shirt in a toddler’s size too large for her. When had he her purchased that? But she was less fruit bat down her front and certainly less murderer.

Rosie clamored to be put down by Sherlock and then to be picked up by John, and so obliged her. The shirt fell on her like a dress. “Hello, love.”

“Oh my gosh, is this y'all's daughter?” the American said, her lilt positively musical with warmth. “Why, if y'all aren't just the most beautiful family!”

“Oh, er, thank you,” John said. In the corner of his eye, he caught the tips of Sherlock’s ears turning red, and something flared protectively, almost recklessly. “Thank you,” he repeated to the woman, and then made their excuses to get back home.

(05)

Everyone looked forward to Fridays, and John was no different. The weekend was a natural pavlovian reward for a typical five day work week, and five days was about as much as he could manage any part of his sleep-deprived life, given that he shared a room with Rosie so. He looked forward to Fridays as any person would and there seemed very little that could be deemed suspicious about that.

But then Thursday morning, Sherlock got a case that took him to Belgium. And Thursday afternoon saw him on a Eurostar to a medieval little town called Bruges, where an art thief was hiding. Estimates that Sherlock would be home late Friday night turned into early Saturday morning, and John ignored the way his stomach dropped when he received that text.

Well, he decided, he’d just have to enjoy a quiet night in at 221B. He ordered himself a Thai takeaway feast for one, and opened one, then two, bottles of Singha, ready to catch up on some TV.

He found himself staring at his phone instead, fingers hovering over the keyboard.

**Rosie misses you.**

The response was immediate.

**Oh? SH**

**Yes.**

**I** , he started to type. And stopped.

Three bouncing dots appeared on Sherlock’s end, and John expected another text. He stared, for a long time, but one never came. John fell asleep on the sofa.


	2. Chapter 2

(+1) 

After work on Thursday, John braved a trip to Tesco’s, armed with a shopping list on his phone.

-

“John, I was working with Rosie today and--” he stopped at John’s raised eyebrow.

“Working with?”

“You know,” Sherlock waved dismissively. “Linguistics. Language acquisition. Anyway, she’s refused to work with me on Daddy and Dada, but she’s much better with other sounds, like Molly and Missus, so I thought I’d try plosives.”

“Plosives,” John repeated dubiously. It sounded remarkably incendiary. Or maybe not remarkable at all, considering Sherlock.

“Yes, look here. Rosie,” he said, getting her attention. “Who’s this?” He pointed to John and looked expectantly at Rosie, and then at John.

“Papa,” Rosie said clearly. And then grinned a wide gummy smile, pleased with herself.

“Oh my god,” John said, in a smaller voice than he expected.

Sherlock’s grin was a near match for Rosie’s somehow. “This calls for a celebration, I’d say.”

John’s mouth worked as his brain whirred. “I--well, yes, I’d love that. But I had already--planned--erm.” Sherlock’s face fell and then caught itself, frozen on neutrality, and John stammered into an explanation. “No, I mean. I didn’t make plans with anyone else, I just. Made plans for you and me. I was going to have Mrs. Hudson watch Rosie for the night. If that’s. If that’s alright with you.”

John watched Sherlock feel out the new arrangement of their standing Friday night date. “I see. Well, I suppose I won’t say no to that. What have you got planned then?”

John smirked helplessly, heart in his throat. “You mean, you haven’t worked it out yet?”

Sherlock’s jaw worked, not sure what to divulge. “There’s ingredients in the fridge for risotto. Your best recipe.”

“Yes.”

“There’s pinot grigio in there as well, two bottles.”

“Spot on. Although I didn’t hide them behind any experiments, like you did.”

Understanding seemed to dawn on Sherlock, lighting up his face with memory, recognition. John watched him filter down to a conclusion. “I see, a quiet night in. Well, that sounds lovely, not really much different than what I had planned--”

“Well, a _little_ bit different. I wanted to do something special, and I thought, it could just...be...”

Sherlock blinked in confusion, and then blinked a half dozen more times in a row. It was less flirting flutter and more mechanical read error. John barely breathed as he waited it out. This wasn’t exactly the way he’d planned things to go.

“Sherlock?”

“John. I have to ask you something plainly, and I need you to not hold it against me if I’ve got things wrong.”

John inhaled. “Okay.”

“Is this...a date?”

A long, shaky exhale. Here goes then. “That depends.”

“...on?”

“If you have a rule against sex on the first date?”

Six years in, and it came out as a joke. Hysterical laughter hovered high in John's throat, fluttering like a bird as he counted out the beats. A joke. It wasn't what he intended but. But.

“Oh.” Sherlock’s mouth hung open before he half recovered, an incredulous, lopsided grin slowly taking over. “Oh, John. This isn’t our first date by a mile.”

John stepped forward, tilted his mouth up, and went in for the kiss.

Sherlock’s mouth was firmer than he’d dreamed. His lips were silky and full, but also unsure, whether out of shock still or disbelief; something else John had yet to learn or figure out. John hoped he was reading Sherlock correctly this moment, that he seemed to be waiting for John to take control of the kiss, bravado aside, as if he didn’t know the way.

So John gently licked at the seam of Sherlock’s lips, asking for access, asking for trust that he wasn't sure he'd earned. He pulled Sherlock closer and tried to pour every emotion, every intention into that kiss. 

John felt him exhale then, a sound like a long-held sigh, and a certain tenseness ebbed out of his mouth, out of his shoulders, and relaxed the way his arms wound around John’s waist. John gave an encouraging groan and tightened his arms wrapped around Sherlock’s neck. He slipped his fingers into Sherlock’s soft curls, and Sherlock made a noise like John had never heard, a noise that began as high breath and ended as a rumble in his throat, a growl in his chest. And just like that, the kiss was suddenly filthy and desperate, John’s body ten steps ahead and Sherlock matching him, lick for lick. He sucked Sherlock’s plump lower lip into his mouth and gently bit it, licking possessively and soothing in turns.

They broke apart, breathing hard like they’d just run a mile. And looking into each other’s eyes, it was like no time had passed, and it was their first evening back from Angelo’s. Sherlock’s eyes crinkled with the beginning of a laugh, and John was laughing back, transfixed. Something broken on the verge of being fixed. Or maybe it already was. Maybe they already were.

“John, please don't make me wait any longer.”

-

They stumbled into Sherlock’s bedroom, Sherlock’s back pushing open the door, John’s lips pushing them through it.

They came to a stop beside Sherlock’s bed, mouths breaking apart, eyes flying open to look at each other. Last calls for regrets. But all John could think was that a hand’s breadth separated them and that was too much, after all this time. Their chests heaved in tandem, like they’d just run home from Angelo's, and it was familiar and aching as anything in John’s life, a loop that begged to be closed. Old bruises resurfaced, old chases relived, a string of moments of _almost_ and _nearly_ and _not yet_ , and he was desperate to close in now. There wasn’t a part of his body that didn’t ache with it, from the backs of his eyes to the tightening in his belly and low throb in his pants. They hadn’t touched below the belt yet and John was ready to go off like a shot.

Maybe they hadn’t been transported back six years, John thought in a daze, maybe he was all the way back to his randy teenage years.

Sherlock brought up the back of his hand to swipe at his lower lip, bitten to a beautiful shade of pink. He wiped at the shiny trail of saliva that John had left on him. It might have been a dainty, prim gesture in another context, except Sherlock’s eyes were on him and left nothing back, heavy lidded and dark with undisguised desire. John’s cock twitched, an answering desperation he could feel plain on his own face. Christ.

“I need to calm down, or I’m not--” John said, voice ragged. “I won’t last. Can we--slow down?”

Sherlock nodded his understanding. “Slow.”

John's heart clenched like a fist. What was slow in the context of six years? Or six dates. In the context of people who killed for each other and made dinners together, raised a daughter together.

Gradually, together, their breathing calmed and the thing between then didn’t seem to burn so intensely, so raw. Sherlock, ever so slowly, cast a gaze on him like John were an intricate crime scene, and that--that was good. John was, he was well aware, shit with words. Shit with feelings. But he tried to be open enough now for Sherlock to read him. And he wanted to watch as Sherlock made his deductions, tested his theories, and trust in what he saw. In John. He wanted to see the moment when it clicked into epiphany, into acceptance, what they meant to one another, what they’d always meant to each other. So John took a breath and didn’t look away.

“Can I...?” John whispered. It seemed like a meaninglessly big question, swallowed up by the quiet room. Vague in exactly the way that Sherlock should have hated.

“Yes,” Sherlock whispered back, and the word meant everything.

John took a breath. And pressed a kiss to Sherlock’s cheekbone, gentle, and another so soft it made no noise. Sherlock’s head ducked automatically to give him access, and John watched those long dark lashes flutter closed. He savored Sherlock’s small, surprised intake of breath, like affection was worthy of shock. Sherlock seemed given up to sensation, now that he’d said yes, and John wanted to give him that.

John left soft trailing kisses down the smooth slope of Sherlock’s face, cutting a slow, careful path to the corner of Sherlock’s mouth. Sweetly responsive, Sherlock turned into it, chasing after a proper kiss, but John grunted softly to hold him off. “Let me,” he whispered nonsensically, and felt more than saw Sherlock nod his assent.

Breathing was a shallow, taut thing for them both, like they were both high on a wire. Careful, so careful. They’d get to the bed soon enough, but John wanted their heights as they were now, just now. John planted a trail of kisses like breaths, like promises, down Sherlock’s jaw, down to the soft skin of his pale freckled neck. Now Sherlock canted his chin up in response, opening for John, and sucked in an unsteady breath, letting it out slowly, shakily. He swallowed, almost nervous, and John felt that long throat of his bob under his mouth. The smell of him was strongest just there, less soap and more Sherlock, less tea and more sweat, the best, most familiar parts of their home together. John pressed a kiss there, and another, and felt the tension pull taut like a bowstring across Sherlock’s body. A physical resolve of tamped down  _want_ , but John felt him hold it back, for now.

Nosing slowly down, John planted soft kiss after soft kiss until he got to Sherlock’s clavicle, hard and sharp where his neck was warm, taut muscle. He mouthed gently down that length of Sherlock’s collarbone until he rested at the centre, at the visible dip that rested just above. On Sherlock, that vee of a notch caught the light and drew the eye as much as any other of his striking features, his mercury eyes, his dagger sharp cheekbones. John’s love affair with this suprasternal notch had lasted for long enough without being acquainted. Gently, John dipped his tongue there and licked, tasting salt and feeling Sherlock gasp and shudder at the touch.

John pushed him back onto the bed and climbed between his legs. Sherlock propped himself up on his elbows, watching with burning eyes as John unfastened Sherlock’s buttons, working his way down until he could pull free Sherlock's shirt tails.

John had seen Sherlock with more exposed skin than this, but the intent, the trajectory of this heat, was everything. The two halves of his shirt hung down loosely, presenting an unbroken window of pale skin from his neck down to his belly. Against the pale grey of the shirt, John took in his unmistakable flush and wanted, in the bluntest, most desperate way, to see _more_ of that, to cause more of that.

A similar desire seemed to grab Sherlock at just the same time. In a muttered growl, he said something that might’ve been “now you” before flipping their positions, John flat on his back on the bed, with Sherlock hovering above.

Sherlock worked more quickly than John had, undoing John’s trousers and pulling down his flies faster than he thought possible.

He grunted at the barest touch as Sherlock pulled him free of his pants. For a brief moment, John’s cock stood tall and desperate, pink and glistening at the tip. Sherlock’s eyes were wide, his mouth just perfectly slack and soft. “Oh, John,” he said, and his face resolved in a determined smirk.

Sherlock's mouth sunk down and John fought not to buck and thrust. Wetness and heat, John was completely lost to it, but it was the soft unthinking moan that Sherlock let out that reached in and squeezed him. A breathless noise out of dark fantasies, as if John’s cock in his mouth was everything he could ever want. More than anything, it was that moan, soft and hungry and new, that broke something free in John. “Oh my god, oh my god, you’re perfect,” the words came out a blur. “Sherlock, I didn’t think, oh you feel, oh--Jesus, _Christ_ , Sherlock.”

He pulled off with a wet pop, and John’s eyes squeezed shut with dammed up desperation. He almost didn’t see Sherlock wipe at his lower lip again with the back of his hand, the way that gesture left his mouth open and soft. Curved into a blurred, awed, _happy_ smile. “Oh my god, Sherlock,” he heard himself say, before surging forward and capturing his mouth.

It was good they weren’t standing, because John felt a weakening bolt go through him at the knees as his mouth confirmed the softness of Sherlock’s raw lips.

“I’m sorry I didn’t--finish,” Sherlock managed to say, smug and happy, sounding as punch drunk and blurred as John felt. “I hoped you--would--” He guided John’s hands down to cup Sherlock’s own arse cheeks and gave them a suggestive squeeze, Sherlock’s hands overtop his.

Oh god, oh christ, he was near to bursting at the thought. “Jesus, Sherlock. Clothes, off. _Now_.”

They were clumsy with buttons, their fingers uncoordinated over each other’s fastenings. Sherlock stubbornly stayed straddled over John for far too long, before they finally gave up and stood, each undoing their own clothes. It was--desperately awkward, full of bony joints and wilful socks, and soon their shoulders were shaking with laughter, bubbling up like joy from that place that had always existed between them.

Their foreheads touched first, grounding and quiet. Sherlock pressed a tube into John’s hands and laid down on the bed, legs spread gracefully. All traces of their earlier awkwardness disappeared in a breath. John took a long look and crawled onto the bed and between Sherlock’s legs.

They kissed, and it felt like an old conversation. A gentle start, measured and promising, before John, from above, deepened the kiss. _More?_ Sherlock rose up to meet it, sighing his pleasure. _More._

John opened him as slowly as he could, working blind, touching his way down and then in, a single slicked finger. Sherlock was open for him, trembling, his legs spread wide, wider than John would have believed. John’s mouth made apologies and promises in turn, sucked and soothed, licking and lavishing attention on one lip at a time. When John worked his way up to the hilt of one finger, pushing the flat plane of knuckles against him, Sherlock sighed out a low, animal groan. More.

Sherlock was trembling in earnest, and not from anticipation.

“Hold your legs back, I’ve got you,” John whispered into his lips, and Sherlock folded up, his hands holding his legs behind the knees. The trembling eased and John kissed him before pulling back.

More slick. Another finger. Just the pads of two finger, and Sherlock’s eyes fluttered closed, a pretty flush making its way down from his cheeks to his neck.

“Gorgeous,” John murmured unthinkingly, which cracked open Sherlock’s eyes as if it was shocking. He pushed it more, rocking forward with his hips. “Bear down for me, I’ve got you. That’s right, perfect, beautiful. I’ve got you.”

John lost himself in it, in the bright, beautiful flush of Sherlock’s skin, the halo of curls his hair made against the bed, the warring looks of concentration and bliss on his face. John’s own erection was some distant thing he almost didn’t want to deal with, except that Sherlock’s eyes flew open after John rocked forward with three fingers, and he looked urgent and unfocused and entirely John’s.

“Now, John, please. Please, I’m ready,” Sherlock rasped, sounding parched and desperate.

John pulled his fingers out and bit his lip as Sherlock gasped at the loss. “Like--like this? Do you have--want--”

If John didn’t think it was possible, Sherlock flushed further and cast his eyes away. “No, I--I don’t. But I’m clean, and. There’s. There’s only you, for me.” He looked back at John, fear clouding his eyes, vulnerability in every tensed muscle. Afraid John would back off now, because Sherlock didn’t keep condoms in the flat. He hadn’t made plans that they might ever do this. There was an unvoiced question there, about what John would do, would trust him with now. John’s heart thumped a single pained response.

He reached up with his clean hand and pushed away a lock of hair from Sherlock’s forehead, damp with sweat. “Me too,” he said. “There’s only us.” And it was true.

John slid inside a bare inch, and then another, and wasn’t prepared for the tight, wet heat of Sherlock around him. He pushed forward on a gasp, caught in Sherlock’s wide-eyed gaze.

The second push in saw Sherlock’s eyelids grow heavy, and a low moan fell out of his lips. “ _John_.”

John tried to keep it steady and slow, but heat built like a drumbeat, and his hips were only too responsive to Sherlock’s rhythmic groans when they snapped forward into Sherlock’s body. When he rearranged his grip on Sherlock’s legs and readjusted his angle, the quality of Sherlock’s noises went up a notch, breathy and lost. He couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore.

Long pounding moments of that, and Sherlock’s right hand snaked down his body to make a loose fist around his cock. John’s eyes drew to the sight like lasers. “Oh my god, yes, please,” John said nonsensically. “Fucking--oh Jesus, Sherlock, yes, Christ. Touch yourself, I want to see you. Want to--see you.” Breathing hard through it, his words were falling to pieces. John was begging with everything in him to let Sherlock finish, to let John see. Christ, it was all he wanted, for Sherlock to come apart, for John to _make him_ come apart.

John watched Sherlock’s hand tighten around his cock, his mouth going slack, his face going soft and tense in a way that was spectacularly, brilliantly new. John could feel the convulsions around his own cock before Sherlock froze up and began spilling, spurt after spurt, reaching high onto his chest. “ _F-fuck_.” The word sounded wrenched out of the depths of Sherlock, raw and unexpectedly filthy, and touched off John’s own climax, wave after wave that wrung him dry.

When he regained some awareness, he was folded over Sherlock, face to his chest and pressed to his heartbeat. Sherlock’s legs were dropped down beside him, slightly underneath him. John was softening but not slipped out yet, and long fingers were at the nape of his hair, raking idly through them. Both their breaths were gradually slowing, falling into step, as though this were the way it always was. In the moment, John couldn’t remember when it wasn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you forever for reading. If you'd like to find me elsewhere, I'm on [twitter](http://twitter.com/avawtsn) and [tumblr](http://avawatson.tumblr.com).


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